UN chief calls on world’s governments to ‘scale up’ fight against coronavirus

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 12 (APP):UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has issued a clarion call to governments around the world to urgently scale up their response to the novel coronavirus if they are to stand a chance of stemming its spread.

“Today’s declaration of a pandemic is a call to action – for everyone, everywhere,” the secretary general said in a statement on Wednesday evening soon after the world Health Organization (WHO) announced that the global emergency can now be described as a pandemic.

“We can still change the course of this pandemic — but that means addressing inaction,” he said. “I call on every government to step up and scale up their efforts–now.”

Latest data indicates more than 118,000 cases of infection in 114 countries, and 4,291 deaths–a 13-fold increase outside China in the past two weeks, and a threefold rise in the number of affected countries.

“The best science tells us, if countries detect, test, treat, isolate, trace and mobilize their people in the response, we can go a long way to mitigating transmission,” the UN chief said.

His appeal echoed an earlier one by WHO Director-General Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, which officially labelled the outbreak a pandemic on Wednesday and blamed its spread and severity on “alarming levels of inaction”.

The declaration of a pandemic, Guterres said, was “also a call for responsibility and solidarity — as nations united and as people united.”
“As we fight the virus, we cannot let fear go viral.”

“As we mourn all those who have lost their lives and the many families who are suffering, we must show solidarity with the most vulnerable — the elderly, the sick, those without reliable healthcare, and those on the edge of poverty.”

Meanwhile, the UN Security Council is scaling back its own schedule for March as a precaution against the pandemic, having already pushed back major gatherings outside of the Security Council.

At a news briefing In Geneva on Wednesday, asked about whether countries should close their schools, borders and airports as a precautionary measure, Dr. Mike Ryan, head of the WHO’s health emergencies response, said that this was decision for national governments.

Their action was based on their assessment of the level of risk and the acceptability of the measure, he explained, before reiterating the effectiveness of chasing down the virus.

Reducing social distance can certainly slow down the disease, but its a poor substitute in countries with a lower number of cases,he explained. a much more cost-effective measure to identify those who are infected and isolate them.

On Iran, where the situation is still very serious amid shortages of equipment, Dr Ryan appealed for greater support clinical care within the country and from the international community.

In Iran and Italy – where there are nearly 900 people in intensive care – Dr Ryan underscored the intense stress placed on health workers and the need to show solidarity and support for these countries, rather than apportion blame.

While these countries were currently in the frontline of the emergency and suffering,but I guarantee other countries will be in that situation very soon.
He added: The caseload, the demand on the health workers, and the dangers that come with fatigue and potentially shortage of people, we must all move quickly.

We must move quickly…we can get into the game of whether countries are doing enough…but we have health workers who need help, hospitals who need our support. 